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The Environmental Protection Agency's new "rules" aren't really funny - either for what they say about the US Constitution, the separation of powers and representative government; or in the context of the US economy's one per cent "shrinkage" announced only last week and its prospects in the years ahead.

Nonetheless, I confess I got a laugh out of this sub-headline at The Guardian:

New EPA rules spur prospects for deal to end climate change

A "deal to end climate change": That's how easy it is, folks. It's like negotiating with the Taliban. You can strike a "deal", and it'll "end" climate change. I wondered initially whether even Guardian sub-editors believe that's how it works. But, on reflection, I think it is. These guys have auto-brainwashed, and so thoroughly vacuumed from their skulls the very possibility of natural climate variability that they seriously think politicians seated round a table can "end" climate change.

We have had a pause in "global warming" now for approaching two decades. That's to say, if you're graduating from high school in the next few days, there's been no global warming since you were in your bassinet. But it doesn't feel like that, does it? Because you've had climate change shoved down your throat your entire life. None of the mid-Nineties models predicted a two-decade pause, and no scientist can do more than speculate on the reason for it. The obvious answer would seem to be that many of the ups and downs of "climate change" are natural variability. But that has been so ruthlessly expunged from public consciousness that a leading newspaper in the most competitive media market in the world can airily talk about the power of political agreements to "end climate change".

That in itself is testament to the power of Michael Mann's disastrous hockey stick. In eliminating, at a stroke of his stick, two of the most widely accepted features of the historical climate record - the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age - he in effect demolished the very idea of "natural variability".

So here we are "regulating" what's left of the US economy into a permanent slough of micro-regulated despond.

~I got another laugh out of Gina McCarthy, the EPA Administrator:

"This is not just about disappearing polar bears and melting ice caps," McCarthy said in a speech at EPA headquarters. "This is about protecting our health and protecting our homes. This is about protecting local economies and this is about protecting jobs."

Well, we're all sad about those disappearing polar bears, aren't we?

For some years now we have been exposed to mournful photographs of polar bears floating away on ice floes, or otherwise appearing endangered... The theory on which polar bears are supposed to be endangered because their environment is becoming more benign has never been entirely clear, nor has there been data to support the claim that their populations are declining. Indeed, polar bears inhabit such remote and forbidding regions that no one has much idea how many of them there are. But no matter. Polar bears are cuddly–from a distance, anyway–and so they served the hoaxers' purpose.

Meet Dr Dag Vongraven, chairman of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Polar Bear Specialist Group:

As part of past status reports, the PBSG has traditionally estimated a range for the total number of polar bears in the circumpolar Arctic. Since 2005, this range has been 20-25,000. It is important to realize that this range never has been an estimate of total abundance in a scientific sense, but simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand. It is also important to note that even though we have scientifically valid estimates for a majority of the subpopulations, some are dated. Furthermore, there are no abundance estimates for the Arctic Basin, East Greenland, and the Russian subpopulations. Consequently, there is either no, or only rudimentary, knowledge to support guesses about the possible abundance of polar bears in approximately half the areas they occupy. Thus, the range given for total global population should be viewed with great caution as it cannot be used to assess population trend over the long term.

Oh. So it was just "a qualified guess to satisfy public demand". But on the basis of that "qualified guess" the EPA Administrator is imposing huge costs on US businesses, which means huge costs on their customers. Was she unaware as she said the line today that there is no evidence of "disappearing polar bears"? Or did she know and just couldn't face giving up the cuddliest poster child for "climate change"?